


Inside This Heaven

by pasiphile



Category: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: F/F, Femslash February
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 13:07:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6007335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pasiphile/pseuds/pasiphile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mina traces her fingertips down Vanessa’s forehead, her chin, her throat. She shivers – so delicate, her Vanessa, so fragile, so scared. Mina bends down and presses her lips against the hollow between Vanessa’s collarbones. “Are you happy, my love?” she breathes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inside This Heaven

**Author's Note:**

  * For [girlwith1oneeye](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=girlwith1oneeye).



> title from Laura Sheeran's Forever Love, which was pretty much on permanent loop during the writing.

Vanessa closes her eyes, gives a shivering sigh.

Mina traces her fingertips down Vanessa’s forehead, her chin, her throat. She shivers again – so delicate, her Vanessa, so fragile, so scared.

Mina bends down and presses her lips against the hollow between Vanessa’s collarbones. “Are you happy, my love?” she breathes.

Vanessa’s expression of awed breathless anticipation melts into smile. “Yes,” she says, eyes closed. It’s her true smile, untinged by mockery, by sadness, by pain.

Mina kisses underneath Vanessa’s jaw, revels in the little sigh that gets her.

They haven’t been outside this room for days, it seems. Nothing exists beyond their bodies.

Vanessa raises her hand, puts it on Mina’s shoulder, lightly and carefully. She’s so careful, Vanessa. As if she’s terrified a wrong move will break this peace, make Mina disappear again.

“Are you happy?” Mina asks again. She rests her chin on Vanessa’s bare stomach, looks up from beneath her eyelashes.

“Yes.” Vanessa’s hand caresses Mina’s hair. “And are you, my love?”

Mina turns her head, ghosts her fingertips over Vanessa’s stomach. Goosebumps appear.

Such power her touch has. Hands that ripped people apart – but no, she won’t think of that. Just Vanessa now, the pale soft skin, the soft hair at her thighs…

Mina takes care, avoiding any spot that makes Vanessa jolt or squirm. Nice enough, her Vanessa squirming beneath her touch, but not now. Now, all she wants is seeing Vanessa languid and indulging, bathing in pleasure without any need to react, to reciprocate.

Mina strokes her hand slowly up the inside of Vanessa’s thigh, bends her head and licks, softly, at the bone of her hip. Vanessa shivers again.

Mina smiles and runs her teeth over the bone, the sharp canines just touching the skin. Vanessa makes a small movement, a quick rise of her hips and her fingers clenching. Mina gleefully returns to that spot, licking and grazing and toying with her fingertips until Vanessa is panting.

“Come – come here,” Vanessa gasps. “Please? I don’t want you – I want you close.”

Mina crawls up again, and Vanessa’s peaceful expression breaks a little. It takes a moment to realise why.

Mina doesn’t move like she used to. She used to feel awkward in her body, bred to stand up straight and raise her chin and smile smile smile, not too wide, not too wild. Now, without corset to hold her down, with her face finally free to express whatever she feels…

Vanessa calls it _catlike_ , _feline_. Feral.

“No,” Mina murmurs. She kisses Vanessa’s brow, her cheeks, her nose. “No, no sadness.”

“It’s not sadness.” Vanessa smiles. “It’s admiration.”

The light of the fireplace casts dancing shapes over the curves and lines of Vanessa’s body, coating her in warm yellow light and creating intriguing darkness in the hollows between and beneath her collarbone. She looks devellish, otherworldly.

Mina can’t stop touching her.

Vanessa puts one hand delicately on Mina’s nape and pulls slightly. Mina rolls onto her side and tangles her legs with Vanessa’s, pulling up close. Touching everywhere.

“I could die like this,” Vanessa says, eyes closed. “I could die and I wouldn’t care.”

“Don’t. I need you here.”

Vanessa smiles again, pure happiness. Mina could _bathe_ in that smile.

They kiss. Mina indulges in it for a while, the slow leisurely slide of lips against hers, the tantalising touch of Vanessa’s tongue, the sharp bite of her teeth and the way her mouth curves into a playful smile afterwards. Then Mina pulls away a little and takes Vanessa’s shoulder, tugs gently.

Vanessa obediently rolls onto her stomach, her chin propped up onto her hands. There is something amused about her smile now – not mocking, but as if Mina’s eagerness brings her an affectionate joy. Good. She likes the idea of amusing Vanessa.

She runs her hand down Vanessa’s shoulder blade, the line of her spine, the raised scar tissue of the cross burned into her back. Earlier, that upset her, the pain radiating of it, the betrayal. Now it’s just one part of Vanessa, like the freckles beneath her left breast or the pale growth marks at her hips. It’s Vanessa’s, and that means she loves it.

She bends down and nips gently at Vanessa’s neck, her shoulder, all the while caressing Vanessa’s lower back. Vanessa closes her eyes and makes a long, drawn-out noise of contentment. Purring.

“Who’s feline now?” Mina murmurs against Vanessa’s ear.

Vanessa laughs and rolls over again, her hands at Mina’s arms, pulling her on top. Mina leans down, elbows on either side of Vanessa’s head. The light of the fireplace flickers in Vanessa’s eyes, burning copper on green.

Mina closes her eyes and touches her lips against Vanessa’s. Careful at first, a ghosting touch and pulling away, and then a gentle pull at her bottom lip, the barest touch of tongue…

Vanessa sighs.

Mina pulls back and trails a finger over Vanessa’s cheekbone. Vanessa’s eyes are closed now, but her smile is still broad. Unrestrained, open. Unashamed.

Mina drops her head down, nestles on Vanessa’s shoulder, still watching her face. “You’re beautiful,” she says, in wonder.

Vanessa smiles, quiet and secretive.

“Tell me about the others,” Mina ask, drawing her fingers over Vanessa’s ribcage. “The others who’ve touched you like this.”

Vanessa’s smile grows. “Are you jealous, my love?”

“Never.” Mina raises her head, presses her lips short and dry against Vanessa’s throat. “Protective, perhaps. Did they treat you well? Did you enjoy them?”

“Yes.” She wraps her hand in Mina’s hair, rolls over, crouching over Mina. “Nowhere near as much as you, though.”

“Good.” Mina throws her arm around Vanessa’s waist, pulls her down, hips against hips, and kisses her deeply. It makes her skin tingle, warmth pooling heavy in her belly. Vanessa moans. Mina pulls away and runs her lips over Vanessa’s throat, the blood beating warm and heavy and quick beneath, pulling at her. Vanessa tilts her head back, baring the blue veins beneath her thin pale skin, no hesitation, no fear.

Odd to think how much this had worried her, before. That the Mina Vanessa loved wasn’t who she was, anymore. That Vanessa would want the creature she was before, quiet and chaste, keeping her thoughts and desires locked away where even her best friend in the world couldn’t see them.

Mina doesn’t contain her desires anymore, refuses the shame forced upon her, follows her instincts without hesitation. She could censor herself, maybe, if Vanessa wanted, if she…

But Vanessa embraced Mina in everything she was, no shock, no surprise.

“I love you,” she breathes against Vanessa’s skin, the way they used to when they were girls, children. “I love you, I love you, I love you and you alone.”

Vanessa tilts Mina’s head to her and kisses her again, softly, a whisper of a kiss. “I know.”

Mina rests her forehead against Vanessa’s shoulder, breathing quickening with each touch, each movement. When she raises her hand to Vanessa’s arm, it’s trembling.

Vanessa’s fingers are tracing Mina’s scars. Like Vanessa’s, Mina had been disturbed by them, at first. They felt like a reminder of what she used to be, what she’d done, the influence pulling at her. She’d worried.

Not anymore. She doesn’t have to worry; they have no power over her here. Nothing can compete with the strength of her Vanessa.

Vanessa pushes up leans on her elbows, smiles down. “My Mina,” she whispers, filled with wonder, awe.

Mina tugs Vanessa down, foreheads touching.

“Tell me this is real,” Vanessa says, softly. “Tell me this will not fade when dawn comes. Tell me – ”

“Shush.” She shifts, resting her cheek against Vanessa’s. “It will not fade. It will not end. I won’t let it.”

“We won’t let it.” And with a sudden ferocious growl Vanessa attacks. Her mouth is brutal against Mina’s, tongue thrusting in and teeth drawing her blood, and her hand finds the apex of Mina’s thighs and pushes up, in. Mina arches her back and clutches at Vanessa’s shoulders, letting herself be taken. Is that what she wants?

No. This isn’t some insipid, frightened little man. It is _Vanessa_.

Mina pushes Vanessa away so she can roll over, her thighs on either side of Vanessa’s hips. She catches long tendrils of Vanessa’s hair in her fist and pulls, kissing, drawing blood as well. The sharp taste on her tongue makes her hips twitch forward and Vanessa laughs, low, wild. She pushes her thigh between Mina’s and ruts against her, without control or finesse or, heaven forbid, _elegance_.

Mina smashes her mouth against Vanessa’s, swallowing her witch’s laughter. She cannot seem to think clearly, concentrate on anything but the wet hard frustrating slide of Vanessa’s smooth thigh, her fingernails drawing blood on Mina’s back – she can _smell_ it, the iron-tang on the air – and her kiss, painful, possessive, violent.

“Vanessa,” Mina moans. She scratches at Vanessa’s arm and Vanessa pushes against her shoulder, as if wrestling, and Mina catches hold of Vanessa’s wrists and pins them down.

Vanessa struggles briefly. Mina keeps holding her, watching her, the beauty of her neck as she throws her head back, the tendons sharp and defined. Her mouth is wet, swollen, her hair a tangled mass. Her eyes are wild.

Eventually she calms down a little, looking up at Mina through half-lidded eyes. Her smile is gone, lust too insistent, too _burning_ to leave much room for amusement.

“I want you,” Vanessa says, in a low, clear voice.

In response, Mina leans down and presses her lips against Vanessa’s collarbone.

She keeps her grip on Vanessa’s wrists as she works her way down – the softness of her breasts, the hard ridge of bone beneath, the soft hairs at her belly – and the soft quick thud of her pulse forms an exquisite counterpoint to Vanessa moans, a steady rhythm to time her touch to. But soon enough she has no choice but to let go, if she wants to reach where she wants. Vanessa simply puts one arm beneath her head, and the other splayed wide. Giving Mina free reign.

She lifts Vanessa’s leg over her shoulder and leans down, her mouth to the warm wetness between Vanessa’s thighs. Vanessa gasps sharp, her hips tilting up as if beckoning Mina in.

Mina spreads her fingers wide on Vanessa’s thighs and licks, suckles, drinking in the salt taste that’s become so familiar to her, so comforting. Her nose is full of musk-smell and Vanessa is moving, small sharp movements that make Mina’s fingers dig into the soft yielding flesh.

“Not, not enough,” Vanessa moans.

Mina raises her head, then leans her cheek on Vanessa’s thigh. “What do you want?” she asks gently.

“More – please – I don’t…”

“Vanessa.” She kisses Vanessa’s thigh. “Shush. Tell me.”

“I want you,” Vanessa gasps, her hand reaching out, fingers grasping uselessly on air.

Mina grins, then moves up. She can feel the roll of her shoulderblades, the pull of her thigh muscles – _feline_ – and Vanessa can see it, too, judging by the heat in her eyes.

Vanessa's face is flushed, tendrils of hair sticking to her reddened cheeks. It makes her look hopelessly young.

“Well then?” Mina asks, head held to one side, smile on her lips.

Vanessa rears up and grasps Mina’s waist, then pushes hard against her side, topping her off. Vanessa’s hand delves between Mina’s thighs and Mina quickly reciprocates. Her mouth on Vanessa’s throat, Vanessa’s nails talon-sharp on her back, no sounds but quick hot breath and gasps, bitten-off moans, to the point where she does not know which are hers and which her love’s.

Pleasure rips through her and she gasps in air, helpless. Vanessa is lost in it too, eyes wild and body arching but she does not stop, and neither does Mina, and it becomes a game, a dare, _I won’t stop until you do_.

Until Vanessa’s humanity catches up and she falls back, exhausted, her pale skin glittering with sweat and her hair plastered against her face. Mina crawls on top of her and buries her nose against Vanessa’s throat, tasting her scent.

After a few moments, Vanessa lays a trembling hand on Mina’s back. “My god,” she says, her voice breathless with satisfaction and laughter. “I did not think I had this in me.”

“Wild thing,” Mina breathes. “Maenad.”

Vanessa laughs quietly. “You are insatiable.”

“ _I_ am, my love?” Mina teases.

“ _We_ are. What time is it?”

Mina retracts herself from Vanessa’s warm-herbs-soap-sweat-lust to briefly glance at the window. “Dawn is coming.”

Vanessa blinks. “Dawn? Did we… The entire night?”

“It seems so.” Mina smiles and falls back down, onto Vanessa’s beating living warmth.

“And yet it seems only moments ago we walked into this room,” Vanessa mutters. “Mina – No, Mina, my love, look at me.”

Mina indulges Vanessa and leans on one elbow, facing her. “What troubles you?”

“I do not want this to end,” she says, a small tremble in her voice.

“Then we won’t let it end.” Mina leans down, eyes closed, and gently kisses Vanessa’s lips. “My love, this will lasts for as long as you want.”

Vanessa looks at her for a moment. Then she raises her hand, and with one decisive gesture closes her fingers. The power rushes to obey her command and a sudden brief wind blows the curtains shut.

“Look,” Vanessa says, her eyes dancing. “It’s night again.”

Mina nestles back into Vanessa’s embrace, eyes closed, smile on her lips. “Witch,” she whispers, a tender endearment.

Vanessa's only reply is a warm hand on Mina's back, fingers caressing the scars.

 


End file.
